


Presents

by paperstorm



Series: 12 Days of Stucky Christmas [11]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bittersweet, Christmas Fluff, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Romance, Wakanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21933967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: Part 11 of the 12 Days of Stucky Christmas series. In Wakanda, Steve brings Bucky a Christmas present.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: 12 Days of Stucky Christmas [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559701
Comments: 19
Kudos: 73





	Presents

_2016_  
  
It’s so hot. Sweltering, steamy, whatever other adjectives that Steve can’t bring to mind at the moment because he’s sweating too much to think properly. Heat like this is December isn’t anything he’s ever experienced before. Between New York, and Europe, and then New York again, he’s used to snow at Christmas. But he’s never spent Christmas in the heart of the African continent before. It’s not something he’d have ever been able to predict, in any sort of wildest dreams situation. He isn’t complaining, other than about the temperature. Bucky’s safe, here. That’s the only thing in the world that matters to him.  
  
He stands in the doorway of the hut they’ve given Bucky, leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, watching as Bucky stands a few yards away in colorful robes, chatting with the Princess. The way he smiles at her as she teases him and cuffs him lightly on the arm has Steve’s heart melting. He wonders how long it’s been since Bucky has smiled like that. He wonders if it’s been decades, if their last night together before the train, one month shy of 71 years ago, was the last time he was truly happy. Steve always loved Bucky’s smile so much. The return of it to his life has cemented pieces of him back together that he hadn’t even realized were broken.  
  
She leaves, after another few minutes, waving brightly at Steve as she goes. Bucky watches her walk back to her motorcycle-like vehicle (only infinitely more awesome), and then he turns to Steve. The sun shines on him, illuminating the tanned skin on his exposed arm, turning his long chestnut hair to brilliant, glittering chocolate. He’s beautiful. He always has been, since the day Steve met him when they were six years old. He couldn’t have known, then, how much that kind, freckled boy would stitch himself into Steve’s life. He’s vital to Steve’s very existence. Steve can barely remember how he ever lived without him, now that he has him back.  
  
“What are you grinning about?” Bucky asks, as he walks closer.  
  
“Just really like seeing you smile.” Steve reaches for him, pulling Bucky in by his waist, hooking his fingers together at the small of Bucky’s back to keep him close. “How’s the Princess?”  
  
“She hates when you call her that.”  
  
“How’s Shuri?” Steve corrects.  
  
“Good.”  
  
“What about you?” He gently brushes a long strand of hair out of Bucky’s eyes, tucking it behind his ear.  
  
Bucky’s been getting better, but there are still such shadows behind his eyes. It’s only been a few months, since he’s been here. Since he was brought back out of cryostasis, his trigger words and the worst of his programming removed but not the memories. Shuri couldn’t pluck those out of his head as easy as picking a piece of fruit off a tree. Everything that was done to him, everything he was made to do, is still in his mind and his heart, and Steve wishes so much that he could snap his fingers and make it all disappear but he can’t do that, either. He can only be here, as often as he can, to listen when Bucky needs to talk and make him laugh when he can’t talk and hold him when it all gets to be too much.  
  
“I’m doin’ okay,” Bucky says, with a tired smile. “I’m happy you’re here.”  
  
“It’s Christmas tomorrow.” Steve shrugs a shoulder. “Had to be here. Spending Christmas with you is a tradition.”  
  
“We had so many without each other.” Bucky’s hand cups Steve’s cheek, fingers playing in the beard he’s grown in the last few months. He’s never had facial hair before, but it’s been a handy cover, now that he’s an international fugitive. With a baseball cap and sunglasses and street clothes, he barely looks like the Captain America the world knows. It’s just as well, since he isn’t Captain America anymore. To the man in his arms, he never was in the first place. He was always just Steve.  
  
“Lots of lost time to make up for.”  
  
“It took me a while to remember what Christmas was,” Bucky tells him. “When I was in Romania.”  
  
“I hate how long you were there all alone.” Steve tips forward, resting his forehead against Bucky’s. “You must’ve been so scared.”  
  
“At first,” Bucky admits. “Then it felt sort of good, to be rebuilding my life. Remembering things. Remembering you.”  
  
“I missed you.”  
  
“I missed you too, Stevie,” Bucky whispers. “Let’s go inside, okay?”  
  
Steve nods. He backs up, the cloth door covering floating over their bodies as Steve walks them into Bucky’s hut. Bucky stays close to him, and suddenly Steve doesn’t care so much about the heat. Bucky’s sweating too, and it no longer matters. Steve will happily risk dehydration just to keep Bucky in his arms.  
  
“I brought you something,” Steve says. He kisses Bucky’s cheek, and makes no effort to move away.  
  
“For Christmas?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Bucky hums. “Been a while since I got a present.”  
  
“D’you want it now?”  
  
“Is that, like, bad luck, or something? To do it on Christmas Eve?”  
  
“We gotta be immune to bad luck at this point.”  
  
“I hope so.”  
  
Rocking him just a little, Steve kisses his cheek again. He loves the way it feels, having Bucky’s body pressed against his from shoulders to knees. “Nothing you did was your fault,” he murmurs.  
  
Their conversation maybe didn’t specifically call for it, but Steve’s made it his job to repeat that as often as he can, when he’s here. And when he’s not here, when he’s out on missions with Sam and Natasha, and they speak on the phone before Bucky goes to sleep. Steve can’t heal him overnight, he can’t erase the trauma and the terror and the suffering. Reminding Bucky that he’s a victim, that he was strong enough to survive, is one small thing he can do.  
  
“I know. Show me what you brought.”  
  
Steve kisses him, a slow slide of their lips, just for a moment before he lets go. He goes over to his bag, pulling out a tablet. Compared to the technology in Wakanda, an iPad seems primitive, but Steve only needed it for a single function, so it’ll work. He sits, cross-legged on Bucky’s sleep mat, and beckons him over. “I didn’t have any wrapping paper.”  
  
“It’s just wasteful, anyway.” Bucky does walk over, sitting next to Steve, close enough for Steve’s shoulder to touch the empty metal socket of Bucky’s.  
  
Steve powers the tablet up. He clicks on the one extra app he’d installed, after making his purchase. The mostly yellow home screen comes up. “This is the online version of a magazine called National Geographic. They write about the whole world, different types of people, cultures, animals, outer space, new scientific research and technology. Sam told me about it.”  
  
Bucky frowns curiously. He reaches over, tapping his fingers on the screen, selecting the latest issue with a cover story on elephants. His face melts into a smile at the pictures, and his head tilts to the side to rest on Steve’s shoulder. “There’s a little one,” he says, spreading his fingers on the screen to zoom in on a baby’s face. It might be the cutest thing Steve’s ever seen.  
  
Steve wraps an arm around him. “I got you a subscription. You’ll get a new issue every month. I remember how much you used to love learning new things, even though we didn’t have much access to it in Brooklyn.”  
  
“Thank you,” Bucky says softly.  
  
“You like it?”  
  
“I love it.” Bucky turns his nose into Steve’s neck. “I love you.”  
  
“Love you more.” Steve turns his head, lips finding Bucky’s forehead. “Read it cover to cover and then tell me all about elephants.”  
  
“I will.”  
  
Steve sets the tablet down onto the blanket, and tugs at Bucky in his arms, and they gently tumble backwards. Bucky ends up on his back, with Steve laying against his chest and Bucky’s fingers running through his shaggy hair.  
  
“I’m happy you’re here,” Bucky repeats.  
  
“Me too, Buck.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me [on tumblr](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/) [or twitter](https://twitter.com/turningthedials) if you want!


End file.
